No More Helpless Damsels: One Gamer’s War on Sexism

Hair and Makeup by Tricia Turner/Artist Untied | Photo: Mathew Scott

Sarkeesian has played her way through hundreds of videogames to identify tropes like Women as Reward.

Old-school gamers remember the Star Fox franchise, in which a vulpine space pilot, later joined by his love interest, Krystal, defends the universe. The thing is, Krystal was originally supposed to be the star of her own game … until Nintendo decided she’d be better off being saved by another (male) hero. She’s just one of dozens of female videogame characters who’ve gotten short-shrifted over the years—and it’s a story Anita Sarkeesian explores in her new web video series. An avid gamer since age 5, Sarkeesian decided in graduate school to combine her loves of pop culture and feminism. She started a show on how women are represented in 2009, and her latest, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, takes a witty, incisive look at gaming and gender, focusing on 10 regrettably common female roles — from Damsel in Distress to the Fighting F#@k Toy. “I would think I found the most degrading depiction of women ever—then a couple of days later I’d find something even worse,” she says. As news of her project spread, Sarkeesian faced Twitter threats, Facebook porn-bombings, even a web game called Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian—but she remains unbowed. “I’m a fan,” she says, “and I’m coming at this because I want gaming to be better.” There’s no cheat code for that yet, but she’s working on it.